Mediated Learning Newsletter

Vol. 5, Issue 6: April 2006, page 2

Keep the Teaching Embers Burning

Lori Morin
Professor and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences
David Freeman
Lecturer, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Lori Morin and David Freeman

Approximately ten years ago, the College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences had extra incentive for looking at teaching methods as it converted to a clinical doctorate of pharmacy degree. While the faculty was doing a good job in teaching, the new degree demanded better preparation of students to identify, resolve, and prevent drug-related problems, and not just preparation for accurately dispensing medications. Having better preparation took more than the reshuffling and addition of courses. The College needed to find, devise, learn, plan, and adopt teaching methods actively involving students in the interpretation, analysis, and integration of information, and practicing problem solving strategies.

To begin the process, faculty had the opportunity to learn and discuss changes occurring in pharmacy practice from a director of pharmacy services for a major health maintenance organization. This opportunity helped clarify additional skills and attitudes that pharmacy graduates would need to contribute and fit into the changing health care system. It helped faculty accept and understand the need for changes in teaching methods. Additionally the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, composed of pharmacy teaching faculty, hosted several seminars on college teaching. The University Faculty Development Program helped fund the participation of faculty and bringing experts to campus as part of the college’s annual retreats. Topics in the seminars included facilitating small group conferences, improving student involvement in large classes, and using a problem-based approach with a central problem (e.g., a patient case study) focusing student-centered learning as they work towards a solution. The goal was to incorporate student-centered, active learning techniques into the first year of the professional pharmacy curriculum rather than have students first exposed to this teaching style later in conferences associated with therapeutics courses. Thus, an integrated studies course sequence was incorporated in the first year of the curriculum. With the small discussion groups of this sequence, students worked on small problems and communicated solutions, ideas, or knowledge to the remainder of the group. Having students involved in active learning early in their academic careers helped them be more confident and comfortable self-learners later in the curriculum and during their clerkships.

The pharmacy doctorate has now been fully implemented, but a question has arisen. After all the focus, excitement, and work at the start of the program, how does a faculty keep momentum for trying and adopting new methods or strategies to improve teaching? The solution reached involves using the 20-30 minutes at the start of faculty meetings to “talk about teaching” and a segment on teaching at the annual winter session faculty retreats.

Speakers from the College or the university campus lead the discussions in the faculty meetings. For example, Liz Putnam, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences and a coordinator for the Physiological Systems courses, presented on using Blackboard’s evaluation component to gather student course evaluations. This is a feature of Blackboard that has not been implemented college wide but has been used successfully in team-taught courses.

More extensive programs on teaching occur at day-long faculty retreats. In 2006, the retreat afternoon was devoted to teaching topics. Johnny Lott started the session with an overview of the Center for Teaching Excellence and services it could offer faculty. Remaining time in the afternoon was devoted to breakout sessions where faculty chose from a variety of interactive informal workshops listed below:

• Test Anxiety–Cheryl Van Denburg and Janet Zupan, Curry Health Service. Learning about campus services to help students suffering from test anxiety and how to better accommodate needs.
• Culturally Relevant Topics in the Curriculum–Estella Anderson, Diversity Programs Office, and Lori Morin. Discussions of objectives of Pharmacy’s Native American Center of Excellence grant to incorporate cultural topics into the curriculum.
• Use of Blackboard to Augment Classroom Teaching–David Freeman, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences. A basic session for first-time users and an advanced session for those who wanted to learn how to import and export grades from Excel as well as other Blackboard features.
• Incorporating Service Learning in Existing Classes–Gayle Hudgins, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and Cindy Garthwait, School of Social Work. A roundtable discussion on successful implementation.
• Teaching, Service and Scholarship Related to Rural Issues–Dave Levison, School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science. A panel discussion by faculty members from pharmacy, physical therapy, social work, and public health programs about collaborating on projects and teaching in rural areas of the state.
• Writing in Courses–Sherrill Brown, Department of Pharmacy Practice. A discussion on incorporating writing into courses from intensive writing to best methods of incorporation.

Faculty spent forty-five minutes with a presentation/discussion period and then moved to another topic. This unique format allowed faculty to concentrate on the areas of their teaching which interested them or needed to be enhanced.

The ideas being tried through out the year could be beneficially incorporated into other faculty meetings across campus. If interested in help to try a similar format, contact the Center for Teaching Excellence at 243-5943.